World Bank Approves $1.5 Billion in Financing to Support India’s Low-Carbon Transition

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors on June 29, 2023 approved $1.5 billion in financing to accelerate India’s development of low-carbon energy. The financing will help India promote low-carbon energy by scaling up renewable energy, developing green hydrogen, and stimulating climate finance for low-carbon energy investments.

India is one of the fastest-growing large economies in the world. While the country’s energy consumption per capita is only one-third of the global average, India’s energy demand is expected to grow rapidly as the economy expands. This calls for a phasing down of fossil-based energy sources in line with India’s goal of achieving net-zero by 2070. The industrial sector is the main driver for future growth of energy demand and emissions, and green hydrogen can play a critical role in initially decarbonizing the hard-to-abate industrial sectors, such as fertilizer and refinery industries, and later heavy industries, including iron and steel. India has achieved impressive progress in renewable energy installed capacity and a decline in costs. Scaling up the production of renewable energy will accelerate the transition.

The First Low-Carbon Energy Programmatic Development Policy Operation – the first in a series of two envisaged operations – will support India in developing green hydrogen. The low-carbon energy is produced by electrolysis of water powered by renewable energy. The financing required to implement India’s energy transition is such that public sector funding alone will not be sufficient. Building on recent successes, this operation will help stimulate private financing and other support by addressing viability funding gaps, reducing off-taker risks, boosting grid integration of renewables, and stimulating demand for renewable energy.

The program aims to scale up renewable energy supply thereby reducing costs and improving grid integration. This will help India reach its committed 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. The government plans to issue bids for 50 GW of renewable energy each year from FY23-24 to FY27-28, which will avoid carbon emissions of 40 million tons per annum by 2026.

A national carbon market is essential to provide a level playing field between low-carbon energy and fossil fuels. This program will support policies for a national carbon credit trading scheme to launch a national carbon market. In January 2023, India issued its first sovereign green bond. The program will support policy actions for the issuance of $6 billion in sovereign green bonds by 2026.

NC State Board of Elections Certifies New Voting System

The State Board of Elections in June voted unanimously to approve a new voting system from Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) for use in North Carolina elections.

The EVS 6.3.0.0 system now is one of several statecertified voting systems, which counties can choose from in determining the best system of casting and counting ballots for their voters.

The new system includes an upgrade to the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system, increased memory capacity, the new DS300 polling place scanner/tabulator, the new DS950 high-speed scanner/tabulator, and new reporting and ballot design modules, among other features.

“The State Board’s unanimous decision to certify this voting system gives county boards of elections and boards of commissioners another option when deciding which system best serves their voters,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “This system has been through rigorous testing as part of federal and state certifications, and it is certified, used, and audited in other states. Combined with many other safeguards in our elections process, election officials are confident that this system will ensure accurate, secure elections for our voters.”

Voters using this system will cast paper ballots in one of two ways:

• Use a pen to mark selections on a paper ballot, check their selections, and insert their ballot into a tabulator (i.e., ballot scanner) at their voting site.

• Make selections using a touch-screen ballot-marking device, called the ExpressVote, which prints out a completed paper ballot that the voter double-checks and inserts into a tabulator.

Voters’ selections are recorded on a memory card in the tabulator for later counting.

Almost all N.C. voters use paper ballots, providing a paper trail of all votes cast that can be audited or recounted by elections officials. (Note: Military and overseas voters, as well as visually impaired voters, may request, access, and return an absentee ballot using an online portal maintained by the State Board.)

The State Board determined that EVS 6.3.0.0 meets all criteria defined in North Carolina’s Elections Systems Certification Program. The system also meets federal standards established by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). As part of the certification process, Pro Verification & Validation (Pro V&V), an independent test lab accredited by the EAC to examine voting systems, conducted a procedural and technical evaluation of EVS 6.3.0.0 and found that it meets the requirements for voting systems in North Carolina.

For more information on voting systems used in North Carolina, visit Ncsbe.gov/voting/voting-equipment.

For more information on election security, visit Nncsbe.gov/election-security.

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